Perhaps the most tragic thing about the death of Virginia Giuffre at the age of just 41 is that almost every news story about it has included the name of one of her alleged abusers in its headline. Even in death, she is defined by the powerful people she spoke out about. The public has been discussing their probable reactions. Her bereaved family members, and the people on whose behalf she spoke out, have already been forgotten by many as editors treat her death as the end of the story. But although it’s the end for Giuffre, it ought to be the beginning of something else: of our judicial systems, media, and social media platforms taking a serious look at how we might serve people like her better.
Speaking out against sex trafficking
Speaking out against powerful individuals and organisations is always a dangerous thing to do, but it never gets more personal than when sexual violence is involved. When Giuffre settled her case against Prince Andrew for an undisclosed sum in 2022, she faced accusations of betraying other Epstein victims. But the victims themselves were largely supportive: they understood why she might have had enough; why she might, at this stage, need to put the whole thing behind her. The trouble is that once a conversation like this has commenced in the public sphere, it never really ends, and it isn’t possible to walk away. With big names involved, the story potential remains too high. The media will always be there, waiting for something to happen, ready to seize on the smallest incident that might excite readers. It’s impossible to have a truly private life.
The threat of this is sufficient that most victims of high profile abusers are unwilling to take action to begin with, knowing that even the protections of anonymity offered by our legal systems may be insufficient to protect them. Furthermore, if they use that anonymity, they are unable to defend themselves against ugly accusations on social media, including claims that they are to blame for being assaulted and that they are making it up to try to get money. If they do speak openly, of course, they risk being accused of doing the whole thing for attention. It’s bizarre to think that anybody would want this sort of attention, which very few can cope with. Furthermore, if people really made claims like this in order to get money or attention, why would they be so rare?
Trials and tribulations: beyond #MeToo
When it’s dangerous to speak out alone, building a movement in which people can speak out together can be an effective solution, but sadly the successes of the #MeToo movement have tended to be focused on women in high profile, middle class professions, with a lot less attention paid to those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. In most areas of society, young women and girls struggle to get people to listen to what they have to say, making it especially difficult for them to take on powerful men. It’s even harder for them if they’re seen as promiscuous, and that’s a label quickly attached to those who have been groomed as Giuffre was, even when they were children at the time and so obviously not in control of the situation.
With all this going against her, it’s remarkable that Giuffre got as far as she did, and that she was able to contribute to the successful prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, who may well have presented the most serious ongoing risk to other young women. Her success is down to more than just courage and fortitude, the qualities for which her friends and family members have praised her. It’s down to the fact that, in spite of what happened to her, she was able to get her life together sufficiently that she could present herself as someone whom juries and journalists would take seriously. That can’t have been easy.
What does a victim look like?
The fact is that survivors of childhood abuse don’t generally make ‘good witnesses’. They are not, for the most part, small children sitting on swings in empty playgrounds and looking up with big, tearful eyes. They tend to have messy lives, to be psychologically unstable and to have trust issues which make it difficult to engage with authority. They’re more likely than average to be homeless, to be involved in sex work or to have drug or alcohol problems, and even when they don’t, they may have mood swings and panic attacks which people with no knowledge of such matters interpret as indicators of unreliability. All these things are natural consequences of trauma, but they place people outside mainstream society, and that society is used to protecting its own.
It is particularly difficult for survivors to flourish in a social climate like today’s, when, increasingly, mentally ill people are being met not with sympathy but with blame, and people in poverty are being told that they’re not striving hard enough. Then there is the expectation that survivors will feel a duty to protect others. Often it takes all of their strength just to stay alive and manage basic day to day tasks. The tremendous pressure associated with entering a courtroom is simply not something they can cope with. Survival may depend on blocking our memories which trials require them to relive.
This can be easier to understand when one considers that the same areas of the brain – the anterior insula and the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex – are activated when we feel emotional or physical pain. Most of us would not expect somebody who had been violently beaten to stand in a courtroom letting themselves be punched, but that is effectively what we put abuse survivors through when we ask them to recount their experiences.
We can do better
There is a lot of talk in Scotland about finding ways to make the justice system less traumatic for survivors, but we need to go further than that. If we’re serious about ending abuse like this, we need to feel sympathy not just for the children and young people it happens to, but for the adults they become. We – all of us – need to speak out when they are attacked in traditional media or on social media. We need to report online attacks and let news editors know that we expect them to do better. We need to make room in society for damaged people and support them so that they have a real chance to heal. Giuffre suffered from severe physical pain following a car accident, but the burden of the emotional pain that she carried should not be underestimated. What is remarkable is not the way she died but the fact that she fought so hard for so long. We should honour that legacy and not let what happened to her be swept under the rug now that she is no longer able to speak.
More in society.
